Method for automatic depth control for earth moving and grading

ABSTRACT

A method and apparatus for automatically controlling the depth of earth grading for utilization with a grader or paver is disclosed. The method includes determination of time taken for an acoustic pulse to travel from a transducer to a reference surface and back, with this value being used to calibrate a microprocessor-controlled distance-measuring device. As the grader moves over a surface to be graded, the distance to the reference surface is constantly detected by a repeated emission and detection of such acoustic pulses. The timing of the echoed pulses is converted to addresses in a look-up table which contains control words symbolizing commands to be given to hydraulic rams carried by the grader. By implementing these commands, the depth of the blade relative to the reference surface is constantly updated, compensating for variations with the height of the reference surface. A thermistor is provided to automatically compensate for temeprature variations as the grading takes place. Displays are provided for the operator of the vehicle to show what type of adjustments are being made to the blade, and whether the height of the reference surface is outside the range of sensitivity of the follower. The follower is automatically calibrated for a given blade depth by repeated incrementation of a delay time variable until a zero adjustment command is generated for the blade control.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to earth grading and paving machines, andspecifically relates to a method for automatically controlling the depthof the blade carried by such a machine for maintaining a desired gradingor paving height relative to a reference surface.

In conventional grading vehicles, an operator of the vehicle will setthe height of the blade on a surface to be graded at a particular depthrelative to a reference surface. Typically, the operator may grade aportion of the gradable surface until the proper depth is reached, andthen will continue with the blade at that height for the remainder ofthe job. The reference surface may be an adjacent portion of ground, astandard string line against which vertical measurements may be taken,or a roadside curb. In the contact method of following, the string lineor other reference surface is actually contacted by the follower todetect changes in the height of the reference surface.

A problem with the conventional approach is that the reference surfacewill typically vary in height, often by a very significant amount.However, the graded surface is usually required to be within closedtolerances. Thus, a need exists for a reliable means of maintaining theblade at a constant depth relative to the reference surface, despitevariations in the height of the latter.

In some prior art systems, such as in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,733,355, toDavidson et al., an acoustic sensor has been used to follow thereference surface. Such prior art systems, however, have severaldrawbacks. One is that the acoustic sensor must be manually calibratedby the operator of the vehicle, who must measure the height of thesensor relative to the reference surface and/or the depth of the blade,and must physically adjust the blade height (using a ruler to measurethe height) in order to calibrate it for a chosen grading depth.Normally, this is done by a two-man operation. The prior art system usesan acoustic signal echo to measure distance, and uses timing windows todetermine the approximate round trip time of the return echo. A greenlight and an "high" and "low" signals are used to signal to the operatorwhen the blade is on the proper grade, is too high or is too low,respectively. There is an acoustic generator unit which is mounted onthe side of an earth mover and which generates an acoustic signal whichis directed toward the reference surface.

To use the prior system, the operator of the earth mover must set theblade at the proper height relative to the reference surface. Thisrequires finding a place where the grade and the reference surface arealready separated by the desired amount and setting the blade there, ordigging the appropriate grade. In the latter case, an assistant mustfollow behind the grader or paver with a measuring stick to measure thegrade for the driver of the earth mover, so as to indicate when theappropriate grade has been achieved. If an assistant is not available,then the operator of the vehicle must repeatedly adjust the blade heightand then climb down off the grader and measure the distance between thereference surface and the graded surface. If the separation of these twosurfaces is not correct, the above-described process must be repeateduntil the desired offset is achieved. Once the correct grade is arrivedat, the acoustic transmitter must be manually adjusted until a greenlight indicating a "lock-on" at the appropriate height is generated.This process is cumbersome and time consuming. If two workers are used,there are considerable extra expenses and availability problems.Accordingly, a need has arisen for a system which can automatically"lock on" to the correct blade height with only one worker.

Another drawback of present systems is that they make no provision forthe fact that a grader or paver may be used over a period of many hoursduring the day, during which time the temperature may changesignificantly. As air temperature in the vicinity of the sensor changes,errors are introduced into the following ability of the system, becausechanges in temperature cause changes in air density, which in turn leadto changes in the speed of sound. Since the sensor results depend ontravel time of the pulse, errors result when temperature changes are notcompensated. Moreover, in the prior systems, adjustments for such errorswould have to be made manually.

Another drawback of systems presently in use is that they provide noindication to the operator of the grader when the reference surfaceheight varies outside the range of sensitivity of the system. Thus, theheight of the reference surface may rise or drop drastically, and forsuch changes it is undesirable to make concomitant drastic changes inthe depth of the graded surface. Prior art systems do not provideindications to the operator of when the height of the reference surfaceexceeds the acceptable limits.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides a system for use with an earth grader ora road paver for automatically controlling the depth of a blade withoutthe above disadvantages of prior systems. The grader or paver isprovided with a follower incorporating a microprocessor with a programfor automatically controlling the height of a blade relative to areference surface. The follower is mounted on a frame carried by theblade, which is in turn carried by the grader in a vertically adjustablemanner. The follower includes an ultrasonic transducer coupled to themicroprocessor, with the transducer emitting series of acoustic pulsesfor echoing by the reference surface back to the transducer. Themicroprocessor detects the time at which the echo returns to thetransducer, and generates a count relating to this time, with the countthen being used as a pointer address to address a look-up table (or"control table"). The control table contains control words relating toupward and downward adjustments of the frame and blade height, toaccommodate upward or downward variations in the height of the referencesurface. These control words are provided as input to the control box inthe cab of the grader, which then sends signals to a hydraulic valvesystem including rams for raising and lowering the blade, which causesraising and lowering of the follower as well. In addition, lights orother displays are provided on the follower and the control box toindicate to the operator the action being taken.

In the preferred embodiment, using an autorange routine the programfirst automatically determines the time for the pulse to travel throughthe air from the follower to the reference surface and back again. Thisis done by emitting the pulse from the follower, waiting a certainamount of time determined by a delay variable, and then incrementing acounter whose value is saved at the time the reflected pulse reaches thefollower. The counter value at that time is utilized as the pointeraddress for the control table, and the delay variable is repeatedlyadjusted by the program until the resulting pointer address points to acontrol word in the control table which relates to zero adjustment tothe height of the blade, and which is located centrally in the controltable.

The count of the counter at the time the reflected or echoed pulsereturns, in combination with the delay time, represents the total amountof time an acoustic pulse took to travel from the follower to thereference surface and back.

After the delay variable is calibrated for a chosen follower heightabove the reference surface (and therefore a chosen blade depth withrespect to the reference surface), the grading process is begun. As theoperator drives along, the microprocessor causes the transducer torepeatedly send out acoustic pulses, and upon receiving the reflectedpulses determines whether the height of the reference surface is higher,the same as, or lower than the calibration height. Changing the distancefrom the follower to the reference surface causes different controlwords in the control table to be addressed, because the count generatedby the counter will be different depending upon the time taken for thepulse to travel from the follower to the reference surface and back.Thus, alterations in the height of the reference surface areautomatically accommodated by the different control words, which areused as commands to raise or lower the blade.

A temperature compensation method is implemented by the circuitrycontained within the follower. A thermistor, in combination with othercircuitry, generates a value which is related to the ambienttemperature. This value is utilized to effectively alter the calibrateddelay variable, such that changes in the air temperature in the vicinityof the follower will not lead to changes in the offset depth of theblade, i.e. in the accuracy of the work being done.

Both the follower and the control box are provided with light or LCDdisplays which are governed by the control words, which indicate whethera command has been given to raise or lower the blade, or to make noadjustment, and to further display error signals to indicate to theoperator that the reference surface is so high or so low that it isoutside the desired range of activity of the follower.

A switch is provided on the control box, along with a numerical display,to allow the operator of the vehicle to make known adjustments (of1/100' increments) to the blade depth without stopping the gradingprocess, exiting the grader, or requiring the assistance of anotherworker.

The follower is coupled to any one of a number of off-the-shelf controlboxes by an interface which is standard to all the boxes. Provision ismade in the circuitry of the invention to allow the microprocessor toautomatically determine what type of control box is being utilizedwithout independent instructions needed from the operator. For instance,the microprocessor may determine whether a standard earth grader controlbox or a paving machine control box is being utilized.

Another switch is provided on the follower (or on the control box) sothat the operator of the vehicle may select a desired error margin(sometimes hereafter referred to as "deadband width"), depending uponthe precision required for a given job. This switch is electricallycoupled to the microprocessor, and provides a signal thereto directingthe microprocessor to utilize a selected one of a plurality of differentcontrol tables, with each control table containing a particular set ofcontrol words, depending on the error margin chosen.

In an alternative embodiment, the follower is calibrated in a singlepass through an alternative autoranging routine, wherein the delayvariable is determined by decrementing an accumulator from a maximumvalue of the delay variable until the echoed pulse is received, and thenadjusting the end value of the accumulator by an amount corresponding tothe appropriate address in the control table relating to zero adjustmentto the height of the blade.

In another alternative embodiment, the delay variable is not utilized tocalibrate the follower to the reference surface. Rather, the totaltravel time for the reflected pulse is determined by a single counter,and then a particular control table address is subtracted therefrom, andthe result is compared with subsequent total times for emitted pulses,with the results being utilized to address the appropriate control wordsin the control table for adjustments to the height of the blade.

By utilizing different control tables, the error margin for the heightof the blade may be set by the operator, with the selection of aparticular control table being governed by the position of a switch onthe follower or on the control box.

Other objects, features and advantages will appear more fully in thecourse of the following discussion.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a typical earth grader shown with theinvention in place;

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the follower of the invention followinga string line;

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the follower of the invention followinga curb;

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of the follower of the invention followinga reference ground surface;

FIG. 5 is a perspective view of a paver utilizing the invention;

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of circuitry implementing the invention;

FIG. 7, comprising FIG. 7A-7D, is a flow chart of a program implementingthe invention, wherein FIGS. 7A and 7B together comprise the mainprogram, FIG. 7C is an INCREASE DELAY procedure utilized by the mainprogram, and FIG. 7D is a DECREASE DELAY procedure utilized by the mainprogram;

FIG. 8 is a flow chart of the AUTORANGE A routine which is call by theprogram of FIG. 7;

FIG. 9 is a flow chart of the TEMPERATURE COMPENSATION routine called bythe program of FIG. 7;

FIG. 10 is a flow chart of the CHIRP routine called by the program ofFIG. 7;

FIG. 11 is a flow chart of the AUTODELAY routine called by the programof FIG. 7;

FIG. 12 is a flow chart of the ECHODETECT routine called by the programof FIG. 7;

FIG. 13 is a flow chart of the LIGHTS routine called by the program ofFIG. 7;

FIG. 14 is a flow chart of the MAINDELAY routine called by the programof FIG. 7;

FIG. 15 shows a display used by the staged control box of the invention;

FIG. 16 shows a display used by the follower of the invention;

FIG. 17, comprising FIGS. 17A-17D, is a flow chart of the paver programof the invention, wherein FIGS. 17A and 17B together comprise the paverprogram, FIG. 17C is the INCREASE DELAY procedure utilized by the paverprogram, and FIG. 17D is the DECREASE DELAY procedure utilized by thepaver program;

FIG. 18 is a flow chart of the AUTORANGE B routine which is call by theprogram of FIG. 17;

FIG. 19 is a flow chart of the FINEDELAY routine called by the programof FIG. 17;

FIG. 20 is a flow chart of the PAVELIGHTS routine called by the programof FIG. 17;

FIG. 21 is a flow chart of an alternative routine called the INSTARANGEroutine;

FIG. 22, comprising FIGS. 22A and 22B, is a flow chart depicting analternative embodiment entitled PROGRAM B;

FIG. 23 is a flow chart of an alternative autoranging procedure calledINSTARANGE B; and

FIG. 24 is an alternative routine called TIMING.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Referring to FIG. 1 of the drawings, the device implementing theinvention herein includes a follower 10, which is mounted on a frame 20carried by an earth grader 30. In the preferred embodiment, the frame ismounted on a mold board or blade 40, which is itself carried by thegrader 30, and thus both the frame 20 and the blade 40 are carried bythe grader. The frame and blade are vertically adjustable by means ofhydraulic rams 50 and 60. (In an alternative embodiment, the blade maybe mounted on the frame, and the frame in turn carried by the grader.)Each hydraulic ram 50 and 60 governs the height of one side of the blade40, and the rams 50 and 60 are in turn governed by a hydraulic valvesystem 70. Another follower 15 is provided, which is mounted on a frame25 carried by the blade 40. The valve system 70 is controlled by thefollowers 10 and 15, in a manner to be described below. Each follower 10and 15 includes a microprocessor and circuitry as depicted in theschematic diagram of FIG. 6, and each follower 10 and 15 is connected toa control box 80 which is preferably mounted in a cab 90 of the grader30 for viewing and operation by an operator of the grader. The structureand operation of the invention will hereinafter be described relative tothe follower 10 and frame 20, but apply equally to the follower 15 andframe 25.

Referring to FIG. 6, a microprocessor 100, which is preferably astandard 80C39 processor, is mounted in the follower 10, and isconnected via a standard address latch 110 to an EPROM 120, whichcontains a program for implementing the functions according to theteachings of the invention. Also connected to the microprocessor, andcontrolled thereby, is a transducer 130, which in the preferredembodiment comprises the Polaroid Ultrasonic Ranging System availablefrom Polaroid Corporation of Cambridge, Mass., and described in detailin the Polaroid Corporation booklets entitled "Ultrasonic RangingSystem" and "Polaroid Ultrasonic Ranging System Handbook." An analogreceiving section 140 amplifies analog signals received from thetransducer 130 for input to the microprocessor 100. A thermistor 150 hasan output connected to a one-shot 160, which has a trigger input T2connected to an output pin at port 27 (designated "P27") of themicroprocessor 100 and has an output connected to an input pin at portP10 of the microprocessor 100. In the course of the followingdiscussion, the apparatus of the invention will be described in detailin connection with the explanation of the method of implementing it.

According to the teachings of the invention, the following is the methodof use of same. Referring again to FIG. 1, an operator of the earthgrader 30 grades a first ground surface 160 relative to a referenceground surface 170, such that the surface 160 is a desired depthrelative to the surface 170, as shown in FIG. 1. Typically, thisrequires a second worker (called a "grade checker") with a ruler, whomust inform the grader operator that the grade is at the desired depth,which comprises a reference offset for the blade. This depth may betypically some inches below the surface 170 or, as depicted in FIG. 4 mbe at the same level as the surface 170. A string line 181 or a curb 190may also act as the reference surface.

The operator then powers up the system of the invention from the controlbox 80, at which time the transducer 130 contained in the follower 10emits an acoustic chirp, i.e. a series of acoustic pulses, which travelsto the reference surface 170 (or 181 or 190) and is reflected back tothe follower 10. In a manner to be described below, the total time oftravel for the chirp to echo back to the follower 10 is detected, bystopping a counter which was started when the chirp was emitted. In thepreferred embodiment, two counters are used. This count of the counterwhen it is stopped comprises a total travel time value for the chirp.The microprocessor 100 uses this time value to control the blade leveland to calibrate the system, i.e., achieve a "lock-on" to the desireddepth. Thereafter, as the operator drives the grader 30, the follower 10continues to emit acoustic chirps, thus detecting any change in thelevel of the reference surface 170. If, for instance, the level of thesurface 170 rises, the follower circuitry detects this, and sends asignal to the hydraulic valve system 70 instructing it to raise theblade 40 and frame 20, such that a constant distance is maintainedbetween follower 10 and the surface 170, thus ensuring that the blade 40remains at a constant depth or offset relative to the surface 170. Inthis manner, the ground surface 160 is graded to a constant offset fromthe surface 170.

The apparatus of the invention may also be used on a paver 180, asdepicted in FIG. 5, in essentially the same manner as on the grader 30,with certain differences to be described below. References to the grader30 herein may be taken as references also to the paver 180, with thedifferences in the paver embodiment being preferred but not required forthe operation thereof utilizing the present invention. The paverembodiment is discussed below, after a complete discussion relating tothe embodiments utilizing the grader 30.

The control box 80 shown in FIG. 1 is electrically coupled to thefollower 10. The connections between the control box 80 and the follower10 are depicted on the right side of FIG. 6, and designated as pins A-J.Thus, there are a total of ten connections, as follows. Pin A is a powerconnection which is connected to a power supply (not shown) viaconventional voltage regulators 123 and 126, and pin F is a groundconnection. Pins B, C, D and E are input connections to the control box80 which govern the raising and lowering of the ram 50 (or the ram 60,which is governed by the equivalent lines from the follower 15). Thus,it will be seen that the follower 10 sends signals to the control box80, which then sends control signals to the ram 50. Pins G and H areoutput connections for the control box, which are inputs to themicroprocessor 100, whereby the operator may send manual commands tooffset the blade 40 to a different height. Finally, pins I and J areutilized to control a numeric display on the control box 80 (notseparately shown) relating to the height of the blade 40. This isespecially useful for the INCREASE DELAY and DECREASE DELAY procedures,discussed below. Each of the pins A-J is connected via a connectingcable 190 and a connecting cable 200 (shown in FIG. 1) to the controlbox 80, and the connections from the control box 80 to the valve system70 may also be contained within the connecting cable 200. The valvesystem 70 is connected via hydraulic lines 210 and 220 to the rams 50and 60, respectively, as shown in FIG. 1.

When the operator powers up the system, the program contained in theEPROM 120 causes the microprocessor to automatically determine what typeof control box in the family of compatible control boxes is connected tothe follower 10. Various control boxes may be used, depending on thetype of work being done, such as grading or paving. Thus, when an earthgrader 30 is utilized, a control box 80 dedicated to that function isused, but when a paver 180 is used, a different type of control box 85is used. Additionally, different types of control boxes may be used fora given grader 30, such as a "staged" control box or a "proportionaltiming" control box, which are conventional control boxes commerciallyavailable from Spectra Physics. The specific applications of thesedifferent control boxes relative to the present invention are discussedbelow.

In order to automatically determine what type of control box isattached, the program reads signals at pins I and J, as seen at theright side of the schematic of FIG. 6. These pins carry signals whichwill be referred to as quadrature signals or bits. Depending upon theconfiguration of the quadrature bits at these pins I and J, themicroprocessor is informed that a paver box, a staged control box, or aproportional timing control box is attached.

Referring to the flow chart of FIG. 7A, if a paver box is attached, thisindicates that the follower 10 is being utilized on the paver 180, andthe program branches to a paver box program, whose flow chart appears atFIG. 17, comprised of FIGS. 17A through 17D. If a proportional timingbox is attached, the program sets a proportional timing (or "PT") boxstatus word, and otherwise it sets a staged box status word. This statusword is utilized later in the program to carry out certain instructionswhich are different for the two control boxes used on the grader 30.

As shown in the schematic diagram of FIG. 6, each of pins B, C, D, E, Iand J includes a buffer (shown to the left of each pin) for bufferingthe signals appearing at the lines between these pins and themicroprocessor 100. In addition, a standard latch is connected betweenthe respective buffers for pins B, C, D and E and the microprocessor 100for demultiplexing the signals on the lines for these pins.

The buffers for the lines to pins I and J are slightly different fromthose on the lines to pins B, C, D and E, in that the former includediode circuitry--namely diodes CR11 and CR12 for the pin I buffer, andCR9 and CR10 for the pin J buffer--for accommodating the aforementioneduses of different types of control boxes. If the flexibility ofaccommodating different types of control boxes is not desired, thenthese diodes may be omitted.

Continuing to follow the flow chart of FIG. 7A, and assuming a stagedbox or PT ("proportional timing") box is attached, the program thencalls the AUTORANGE A routine, which is depicted in the flow chart ofFIG. 8. This routine in effect determines the amount of time an acousticchirp requires to travel from the follower 10 to the reference surface170 and back again to the follower 10. Basically, a chirp is firstemitted from the follower 10 in a known manner, and a countdown isbegun, with the length of the countdown depending upon the value of avariable which may be referred to as the DELAY variable. Once thecountdown of DELAY is finished, a countdown by decrementing theaccumulator (which has previously been initialized with an initialcount) is begun, and at the same time an interrupt pin (MP6 of themicroprocessor 100 as shown in FIG. 6) is enabled in order to detect thereflected chirp at the follower 10. As will be understood from thedetailed discussion of the AUTORANGE A routine immediately following,the DELAY variable is first set at a minimum and is repeatedlyincremented until the reflected pulse is received at the follower 10 ata given point of time during the decrementation of the accumulator.

Specifically, in the preferred embodiment, the DELAY variable isadjusted so that, when DELAY has been fully decremented, the chirp issent out and interrupt pin MP6 is enabled, and then the accumulatordecrementation is begun, such that the reflected pulse will reachfollower 10 exactly when the accumulator value is 121 (although othervalues may be chosen; this is for one specific embodiment). Theaccumulator is an 8-bit register with a capacity to represent numbers inthe range of 0 to 255. The number in the accumulator at the time thechirp echo returns and causes an interrupt is utilized as an address toa look-up table stored in the EPROM 120 (hereinafter referred to as the"control table"). The control table contains data relating to actions tobe taken by the ram 50 and the ram 60. These control words are fed tothe control box via the pins B, C, D and E in FIG. 6, and to followerlights or lamps 230, 240 and 250, as depicted in FIG. 2. The lines tothe follower lamps are shown as lines L1, L2 and L3 in FIG. 6, and areoutput from the pins MP35, MP36 and MP37 from the microprocessor 100.The data stored in the control table are to be utilized by the mainprogram to send instructions to the ram 50 as to whether to raise orlower the frame 20 and the blade 40. Since the AUTORANGE A routine iseffectively a calibration routine, it is desirable--once given a bladedepth is chosen by the operator, relative to the reference surface170--to manipulate the DELAY variable such that the accumulator will beat a particular value when the reflected chirp is received at thefollower 10, such that the accumulator value at that time may be used asan address for accessing a control word in the control table whichrelates to a zero adjustment command to the ram 50. The control tablealso includes control words relating to commands or instructions toraise or lower the frame 20 and blade 40, which are contained at,respectively, higher or lower addresses in the control table. Theaddress 121 mentioned above was chosen because it is near the center ofthe 8-bit control table, and thus provides for approximately equalnumbers of "raise" and "lower" instructions above and below it in thecontrol table.

Referring to FIG. 8, the AUTORANGE A routine thus first sets thevariable DELAY to a minimum value and then sets a bit, to be referred toas the autorange bit, in the status word. (Alternatively, it may bepreferable to utilize a separate register in the EPROM 120 for thispurpose.) Then, the AUTORANGE A routine sends a signal via the lines L1,L2 and L3 and pins B, C, D and E to the follower lights, and to thecontrol box, respectively, comprising commands for the lights on thefollower and the control box to be turned off. The control box 80preferably includes an array of lights corresponding to the followerlights 230, 240 and 250, which are turned on in a variety of patterns toindicate whether the reference ground level has either risen, or stayedat the originally calibrated level, or fallen, and thus indicates theaction being taken by the program (such as raising or lowering the frameand blade) to compensate.

At the beginning of the loop shown in FIG. 8, the AUTORANGE A routinethen increments the DELAY variable, and calls the TEMPERATURECOMPENSATION routine, the flow chart for which is depicted in FIG. 9.The microprocessor 100 first initializes a variable TEMPTR to zero, andthen sends a signal over the MP38 signal line to trigger input T2 of theone-shot 160, as shown in the lower left of the schematic diagram ofFIG. 6. The one-shot 160 is preferably a standard LM555 timer integratedcircuit. The reset port T4 and control port T5 are left floating, i.e.,do not take part in the current operation.

The threshold pin T6 of the timer 160 is normally held at ground at thedischarge pin T7. The thermistor 150 is normally held at its upper end(as seen in the schematic of FIG. 6) at 5-6 volts, as indicated by theupward arrow (which is standard throughout the schematic for V_(cc) orthe supply voltage--as are the downward arrows, which indicate ground).As the trigger T2 is activated, the threshold pin T6 is disconnectedfrom ground by the pin T7, thus allowing capacitor C12 to charge. Whilethe capacitor is charging, the value of TEMPTR in the microprocessor isrepeatedly incremented at a predetermined rate. At the time of thetrigger event, the output T3 from the one-shot 160 to port MP10 of themicroprocessor 110 is made active. Once the charge on the capacitor C12reaches the voltage level of the threshold at T6, or about 4 volts, thedischarge pin T7 is forced to ground by pin T6, and the output T3 isdeactivated, i.e. is driven low. The microprocessor detects thedeactivation of T3 by polling port MP10 to determine when it is low, andon that event, stops the incrementation of the contents of the registerTEMPTR; thus, the final value stored in register TEMPTR represents thetotal amount of time which was required for the capacitor C12 to chargeto the threshold value which is indicative of the air temperature andthe air density. This length of time depends upon the resistance of thethermistor 150, which is a function of the temperature. As thetemperature goes up, the resistance of the thermistor decreases, and thetime for the capacitor C12 to charge goes down; and conversely, as thetemperature decreases, the length of time for the capacitor to chargeincreases. Therefore, the length of the pulse output to the port P10(i.e. the time value of TEMPTR) is inversely proportional to the ambienttemperature. This value is utilized (as discussed in detail below) toadjust the amount of delay time implemented by the AUTODELAY routine ofFIG. 11.

From the above, it will be understood that the temperature compensationroutine returns a value for TEMPTR which represents the temperature ofthe environment in which the follower 10 is operating. This isimportant, because the speed of sound, upon which the follower rangefinding depends, changes with temperature.

The AUTORANGE A routine then calls the CHIRP routine, whose flow chartis depicted in FIG. 10. The purpose of the CHIRP routine is simply toemit a series of acoustic pulses. First, a register R₀ is set at 16, andthen a loop is entered whereby a series of acoustic pulses are emittedfrom the transducer 130. In order to accomplish this, the output pinMP30, which is coupled to an input of the transducer 130, is raised, andthe program causes a delay of one machine cycle (or more, depending uponthe particular application). Then the pin MP30 is lowered, and anothermachine cycle is waited. Then the register R₀ is decremented, and thisseries of steps is repeated until R₀ reaches zero. Finally, the CHIRProutine returns to the AUTORANGE A routine.

The next routine called by the AUTORANGE A routine is the AUTODELAYroutine, whose flow chart is depicted in FIG. 11. It will be recalledthat the variable DELAY was initialized to a minimum, and thenincremented once, as shown in FIG. 8. At this point, following the flowchart of FIG. 11, the AUTODELAY routine sets a temporary accumulatorvariable TEMPRY to equal the value of the DELAY variable. Then, anotheraccumulator (referred to as ACC) is set to TEMPTR, which was obtainedfrom the TEMPERATURE COMPENSATION routine. The remaining steps in FIG.11 cause the program to delay for the amount of time necessary todecrement the DELAY register to zero, as adjusted by the temperaturevalue stored in TEMPTR. Since the value of TEMPTR is inverselyproportional to the temperature in the vicinity of the follower, theAUTODELAY routine causes a time delay which is longer for highertemperatures (which correspond to shorter values of TEMPTR), and isshorter for lower temperatures.

As the DELAY countdown is undergone during the AUTODELAY routine, it ispossible that the chirp emitted during the CHIRP routine will return tothe transducer. In case this happens, as indicated in FIG. 11, theprogram periodically checks a pin MP6 of the microprocessor 100, whichis activated when a comparator 260 of the analog receiving section 140finds that an echo has been returned to the transducer 130. If such anecho (i.e., the reflected chirp) has been received, the transducer 130provides a signal over line 270 to the analog receiving section 140,which effectively acts as an amplifier for this signal for input at theproper voltage to pin MP6. If the interrupt pin MP6 is found to beactive before the loop shown in FIG. 11 is completed, a delay isexecuted to ensure that the chirp echo has died down, and then a returnto the main program is executed. The microprocessor can detect whenthere is an active interrupt signal at MP6 even when the pin is notenabled However, the interrupt service routine is not performed untilMP6 is enabled and an interrupt signal is active. The purpose for thisdelay and return from the AUTODELAY routine is discussed below.

If, however, the interrupt pin is not found to be active during the loopof FIG. 11, the AUTODELAY routine proceeds to decrement the accumulatorvariable ACC, then test it for zero. If it is not zero, it thendecrements TEMPRY, and also tests this for zero. Once ACC is found to bezero, it is reset to the TEMPTR variable, and the loop of FIG. 11proceeds. This loop is repeated until TEMPRY reaches zero, during whichtime the accumulator variable ACC may have reached zero anywhere fromone to very many times.

It will be understood that, the lower the value of TEMPTR, the moretimes the value of ACC reaches zero in the loop of FIG. 11; and sinceeach decision-making process or step takes a certain amount of time, thelower the value of TEMPTR, the longer the AUTODELAY routine takes tocycle through the loop. Conversely, the higher the value of TEMPTR, thelonger the AUTODELAY routine will take to cycle through its loop. Ineffect, by repeatedly resetting ACC to the value of TEMPTR anddecrementing it to zero, the AUTODELAY routine multiplies the delaywhich would otherwise be incurred simply by decrementing the value ofDELAY by a factor which is directly related to the actual ambienttemperature. This results in a total time of implementing the AUTODELAYroutine which is automatically temperature compensated. The actualcompensation factor resulting from the value of TEMPTR can be set asdesired by utilizing no-operation steps to a greater or lesser degree inthe ACC reinitialization branch of the loop in AUTODELAY.

Other factors affecting the accuracy of prior devices include humidity,air pressure or density, altitude above sea level, and any othervariables which may affect the speed of sound in air. Thus, theTEMPERATURE COMPENSATION routine may be broadened to compensate for suchother variables using methods analogous to the method for correcting fortemperature changes

The ECHODETECT routine of FIG. 12 is then implemented. This routineserves to determine the echo time for the chirp. This routine utilizesthe accumulator ACC, in effect, as a countdown timer, setting it firstto a certain maximum (in the preferred embodiment, 240), and thendecrements ACC repeatedly, meanwhile testing pin MP6 for whether an echointerrupt occurs during the countdown. If such an echo interrupt occurs,an address pointer which will later be utilized to access the controltable is set for the value of ACC at the time of the interrupt, and thusrelates to the point in time at which the echo interrupt was received.

In order to accomplish this, the ECHODETECT routine first sets aregister R₂ to a blank light pattern; that is, R₂ is used to store data,which, when output to the follower (and, optionally, also to the controlbox, causes none of the lights of those displays to be energized. Then,a variable address pointer is set to zero, and ACC is set to a constantequal to 240. The interrupt pin MP6 of the microprocessor 100 is thenenabled in a standard fashion. This pin is a standard feature of the80C39HC microprocesor, and functions such that, when a signal isreceived at the pin MP6 while it is enabled, a jump to an interruptservice routine is immediately executed

A loop as depicted in FIG. 12 is then begun, which first decrements ACC,then waits a certain amount of time (two machine cycles in the preferredembodiment). If an interrupt occurs at the interrupt pin MP6 during thisloop, the value of the address pointer is immediately set equal to theaccumulator value at the time of interrupt, and the accumulatordecrementation loop is continued until ACC reaches a zero value. Thenthe interrupt pin MP6 is disabled, and the value of 15 is added to theaddress pointer. The purpose of this last step is to accommodate certainprogram steps, which, in the preferred embodiment, are actually storedat the lowermost 15 locations of the address pointer. This is, ofcourse, simply a design feature which may be altered in otherembodiments.

At the completion of the ECHODETECT routine, one of three situations hasoccurred The first possibility is that the interrupt pin MP6 was foundalready to be active at some point during the AUTODELAY routine, inwhich case the AUTODELAY routine immediately returned to the mainprogram, and the ECHODETECT routine was begun, as previously explained.Examining the flow chart of FIG. 12, it is seen that the address pointerwould then be set to zero, the accumulator would run through itsdecrementation loop, and, since an echo was already received,necessarily no further interrupt could occur during the decrementationloop. The delay which is implemented by the AUTODELAY routine to ensurethat the echo had died down also ensures that no latter part of thechirp could cause return from the loop of the ECHODETECT routine, if anecho has already been received during the AUTODELAY routine, thuscausing a return from the routine. Since no interrupt occurs during theloop of the ECHODETECT routine of FIG. 12 in this first hypotheticalsituation, the address pointer is never set to the accumulator value,and at the end of the ECHODETECT routine, the constant 15 is added tothe address pointer (which had been initialized at zero) such that, uponexiting the ECHODETECT routine, the value of the address pointer is 15.

The second hypothetical situation which could occur is, of course, thatan interrupt was received during the decrementation loop in FIG. 12, inwhich case the address pointer is equal to the accumulator value at thetime of interrupt, 15 is added to the address pointer, and thisdetermines the final value of the address pointer upon exiting theECHODETECT routine.

The third hypothetical situation which could occur is that no echo wasreceived at all, either during the AUTODELAY routine or the ECHODETECTroutine, and thus, once again, this would result in a value of 15 forthe address pointer.

Only if an echo is received during the ECHODETECT routine is thereference plane within range for a "lock-on". Outside this range, thesystem generates error signals indicating the "out-of-range" conditionand the direction of the error.

Following the return from the ECHODETECT ROUTINE, the value of theaddress pointer is utilized in the LIGHTS routine of FIG. 13, which isthe next routine to be called by the AUTORANGE A routine. First,depending upon the status word which was set near the beginning of themain program (see FIG. 7A), relating to whether a staged box or a PT boxis in use, the appropriate control table is accessed. In the preferredembodiment, there is one control table relating to the staged box, and adifferent control table relating to the PT box, both of which tables arecontained in internal memory in the EPROM 120. The control word pointsto the appropriate control table, and the address pointer points to theappropriate control word in that table.

The control word, as discussed above, contains data relating toinstructions to the follower as to whether to light up particularpatterns of light corresponding to changes in the height of thereference ground surface 170. Similarly, the control word contains bitsrelating to the display on the control box, and simultaneously relatingto actions to be taken by the rams 50 and 60 to accommodate such changesin the level of the reference ground surface 170. In the preferredembodiment, the light display (which may alternatively be an LCDdisplay) on the control box appears as follows. If it is determined (ina manner to be described below) that the reference ground surface 170has fallen past a certain point relative to the calibrated level, thenon the control box a light or LCD symbol HI is lit up (to indicate thatthe blade is at too high a level, i.e. is grading at an offset less thanthe chosen offset). This is depicted in FIG. 15. This would correspondto an upper light (which is preferably yellow) which would be lit up onthe follower or on the PT control box, as depicted in FIG. 16.

In the preferred embodiment, the control words in the control table arearranged in bands corresponding to "in-the-green" locked-on condition,and to high coarse, low coarse, high fine and low fine adjustmentconditions. This renders the follower compatible with the preexistingfamily of Spectra Physics control boxes In alternative embodiments, alinear array of control words which alter the blade position linearly asa function of the displacement from the center of the green or locked-oncondition could be used. Such an embodiment would require a differenttype of controller or would require additional interface circuitry inthe follower itself to allow the follower to directly control thehydraulic valves controlling the blade control hydraulic rams.

The preferred embodiment works as follows. Referring to FIG. 6, such asignal to the staged and PT boxes might, for instance, correspond to pinE being activated, with pins B, C and D not being activated. Thus, whenpin E is activated and pins B, C and D are not activated, the lightpattern is as in either FIGS. 15 or 16, and the appropriate signal isalso sent by the control box to the valve system 70. The blade 40, andhence also the frame 20, is thereby raised by a predetermined amountAlternatively, the signal and the valve system might be configured toadjust the blade height for a certain period of time at a certainadjustment velocity. The desired result is to make adjustments to theblade corresponding to the control words which are accessed, thuscompensating for changes in the height of the reference surface.

Similarly, if a low signal is received, the "LO" light in FIG. 15 isturned on, or the lower light (depicted as the lowermost circle) in FIG.16, which is again preferably yellow, is energized This is to indicatethat the blade is at too low a level relative to the reference surface,i.e. is grading at an offset greater than the chosen offset At the sametime, a low adjustment instruction is sent to the valve system 70 andthence to the ram 50, and the frame 20 and blade 40 are thereby raisedby a predetermined amount.

The other possibilities for adjustments to the ram 50 lie between theseextremes For instance, if the reference ground surface 170 is slightlyhigher than the calibrated level, then perhaps only pin D of FIG. 6would be activated, which would relate to a high fine adjustment. Thispreferably corresponds to the downward-pointing arrow and the "ON"symbols being blinked on and off or, alternative, in the PT control box,blinking the upper yellow light. The activation of only pin C would thencorrespond to a low fine adjustment, and would result in blinking of theupward-pointing arrow and the "ON" symbol in FIG. 15 or blinking thelower yellow light in FIG. 16. If both pins D and C are activated, thiswould relate to a situation here the reference ground surface was stillsubstantially at its original level, and in the preferred embodimentwould result in a display as in FIG. 15, where only the "ON" symbolblinked, or the center light (depicted by the center circle in FIG. 16)of the PT control box blinking. Preferably, the center light of FIG. 16is a green light.

With the staged control box, an additional two possibilities areaccommodated, namely that pins E and D are both energized, in which casethe "HI" symbol and the downward-pointing arrow are both blinked, orpins B and C are both energized, in which the "LO" and theupward-pointing arrow in FIG. 15 are blinked. These situations wouldcorrespond to combination high-coarse/high-fine and low-coarse/low-fineadjustments, respectively, to the height of the blade and 40 frame 20,with the high-coarse/high-fine adjustment being intermediate thehigh-coarse adjustment and the high-fine adjustments, and similarly withthe low-coarse/low-fine adjustment being between the low-fine andlow-coarse adjustments.

Thus, one reason for utilizing different control tables for the stagedbox and the PT box is that the staged box display and ram adjustmentsallow for seven different states to be detected and correspondinglyadjusted, i.e., high-coarse; high-coarse/high-fine; high-fine;high-fine/low-fine (which results in no adjustment); low-fine;low-fine/low-coarse; and low-coarse. The PT box, on the other hand,simply has high-coarse; high-fine; high-fine/low-fine (i.e , noadjustment); low-fine; and low-coarse. Other implementations are, ofcourse, possible utilizing different configurations of control bits fromthe control word output to the pins B, C, D and E, and utilizingdifferent types of coarse and fine upward and downward adjustments.

At the same time that the pins B-E are energized for sendinginstructions to the control box, three bits are sent to the follower 10over the lines L1, L2 and L3, as seen in FIG. 6, which energizes thelamps of the follower 10 in the same manner as the display of the PTcontrol box, as shown in FIG. 16. The control word is an 8-bit word, andthus the bits output to pins B-E utilized four of these bits, whereasthe bits output on lines L1-L3 utilize another three bits. The remainingbit is retained internally within the microprocessor 100 and may bereferred to as a "blink bit" and controls whether the lamps of thefollower blink on and off, or are simply energized on or turned off. Inthe preferred embodiment described above, only for the high-coarse andlow-coarse situation are the upper- and lowermost lamps energized in aconstant ON state; otherwise the appropriate lamps are blinked. Thus,where the reference ground surface 170 is detected to be considerablyhigh or considerably low, the blink bit will be off; otherwise it willbe on.

Now, referring back to the LIGHTS routine flow chart of FIG. 13, oncethe control word which is obtained from the appropriate control table isstored in register R₂, the LIGHTS routine tests for whether the blinkbit is set in the control word. If it is set, an internallight-on/lights-off toggle of the microprocessor 100 is set to theopposite setting of its current position. Thus, if in a previous cyclethe lights were blinked on, they will now be blinked off, and viceversa. If the blink bit is not set in the control word, this step isbypassed.

The LIGHT routine then tests for whether the autorange bit is set in thestatus word, which is the case at present, since this bit was set in thestatus word in the beginning of the AUTORANGE A routine. If this bit isset, then, the control word is output to the follower lights only, andnot to the control box. As will be seen below, the lights routine isalso utilized in the main program, and the controls to the ram 50 viathe control box 80--and indeed the displays of FIG. 15 and 16 on thecontrol box--are given instructions via pins B-E, as discussed above.

Once the control word is output to the follower lights in the LIGHTSroutine, the program returns to the main line of the AUTORANGE Aroutine, and a test is conducted for whether the address pointer pointsto an address of the control table within a "deadband," the width ofwhich may be set by the operator. As mentioned above, in the preferredembodiment, location 121 of the control table contains a control wordindicating that no adjustment to the ram 50 should be taken, i.e., the"center of the green band"; this corresponds to the blinking of thegreen light on the follower 10. There are preferably several locations,however, which contain the same control word, centered around address121 of the control table. For instance, addresses 120, 121 and 122 allmay contain no-adjustment control words (which may be referred to as"green" control words) or, alternatively, locations 116-126 may allcontain "green" control words. The number of addresses surrounding thechosen "center" address of 121 which contains "green" control words isthus referred to herein as the "deadband." A switch is preferablyprovided on the follower 10 (or, optionally, on the control box 80) toallow the operator of the grader 30 to choose which deadband he prefers,in the sense that the operator may control which control table is beingused with each control table having a different deadband width, i.e., adifferent number of "green" control words which include no adjustmentsignals to alter the blade height. If a very precise job is required,the smallest deadband may be chosen, and for the average job, forinstance, a medium deadband may be chosen. For coarse grading, a coarsedeadband may be chosen. In the preferred embodiment, the deadband switchsetting is stored as a part of the status word, although it may bestored as a separate variable.

The deadband select bits appear at lines DB3 and DB6 of FIG. 6, and aswitch 281 is also shown, connected to input pins MP33 and MP34 of themicroprocessor 100. It will be understood that with two bits available,three deadband selections may be accommodated.

Thus, in the AUTORANGE A routine, the test is conducted as to whetherthe address pointer points to an address within the chosen deadband. Ifso (for instance, if the address pointer points to location 121), thenthe autorange bit is reset (i.e., activated) and the AUTORANGE A routineis exited, returning to the main program. For this to be the case, thedelay implemented by the AUTODELAY routine, which depended upon theinstantaneous value of the DELAY variable plus the time taken todecrement the value of ACC in the ECHODETECT routine to the value of121, would have to have equaled exactly the time taken by the chirp totravel from the follower 10 to the reference ground surface 170 and backagain to follower, to provide an interrupt signal at the interrupt pinMP6. On the first pass through the AUTORANGE A routine, the DELAYvariable will be at a minimum, plus a single incrementation. If thisdelay, plus the time taken for the accumulator to decrement to a valuewithin the deadband range (such as addresses 120-122) during theECHODETECT routine, is too short, then the address pointer will not befound to point to an address within the deadband at the bottom of theloop of the AUTORANGE A routine, as seen in FIG. 8, and the loop will berepeated with a higher value for DELAY. This loop is repeated again andagain, until finally the value for DELAY is just right, such that thedelay implemented by the AUTODELAY routine, plus the time taken for theaccumulator to reach a "deadband" value during the ECHODETECT routine,equals the amount of time taken for the chirp to be emitted from thefollower 10 (by the CHIRP routine) and to be reflected back to thefollower. At this point, when the test for whether the address pointerpoints to an address within the deadband is conducted by the AUTORANGE Aroutine, the answer will be "yes," and a return to the main program willbe executed. Therefore, the net result of the entire AUTORANGE A routineis to set a value for DELAY to ensure that this result occurs, in effectcalibrating the follower for the particular height of the referencesurface 170 at the time of autoranging.

Referring again to the flow chart of FIG. 7A, the main loop of theprogram is now begun. First, the deadband switch setting, discussedabove, is read and saved for use during the upcoming ranging procedure.Then the status word (staged or PT box) is read to implement properinterpretation of requests for increasing or decreasing the value ofDELAY by the INCREASE DELAY and DECREASE DELAY procedures of FIGS. 7Cand 7D. These procedures will be discussed below, after the followingdiscussion on the remainder of the main program.

Assuming for the moment that no increase or decrease delay requests aremade by the operator, the main program proceeds to the ranging procedureof FIG. 7B. This procedure is used to detect changes in the height ofthe reference ground surface 170 (or the string line 181, or the curb190) and thereupon raise or lower the blade 40 to keep it at a constantoffset. Thus, first the TEMPERATURE COMPENSATION routine is called, todetermined a new value for the variable TEMPTR (or an unchanged value,if the temperature has not changed). An alternative temperaturecompensation procedure, both for the AUTORANGE routine and the mainloop, utilizes an empirically determined temperature compensation curvestored in memory, so that for a given temperature as detected by thethermistor 150 or other means for temperature detection, the program isdirected simply to retrieve the appropriate correction factor from thecompensation curve, without the need for the one-shot 160. The programwould then simply multiply the value of DELAY, or would otherwisecorrect for temperature depending upon the nature of the compensationcurve data, before implementing the MAINDELAY (or AUTODELAY) routine.

The CHIRP routine is then called to emit a chirp from the follower 10.At this point, a routine entitled MAINDELAY is implemented, as depictedin the flow chart of FIG. 14. This routine is similar to the AUTODELAYroutine, with the difference lying in the steps to be taken if theinterrupt pin MP6 is found to be active sometime during thedecrementation loop of the MAINDELAY routine. If MP6 is found to beactive during the decrementation loop, then a delay to ensure that theecho has died down is implemented (just as in the AUTODELAY routine),but then the program instructs the control box and follower via theappropriate signal lines to blank out their displays, and a zerohydraulic adjustment command is provided to the ram 50 by the controlbox. It will be understood that, if the interrupt pin MP6 is alreadyactive before the delay implemented by this routine (which depends uponthe DELAY variable) can be accomplished, this means that the referencesurface is closer to the follower than when the value for DELAY was set,since the echo is returning sooner than for the calibration of DELAYduring the AUTORANGE A routine. If the reference surface 170 rises asmall amount, this will cause the accumulator during the ECHODETECTroutine to decrement a lesser amount when the echo is received, and ifthe accumulator has decremented to some value between 255 and the top ofthe deadband (such as 122), then the appropriate high-coarse orhigh-fine control word will appear at the control table locationaddressed by the address pointer. If, however, the reference surface 170rises a large amount, then it is possible that the MAINDELAY routinecannot even be completed before the echo is received at the follower 10.This would, therefore, result in the situation under discussion, namelythat the interrupt pin is active before the loop of FIG. 14 iscompleted. Blanking out the lights and instructing the ram 50 to makezero hydraulic adjustments constitutes an error signal indicated thatthe reference surface 170 is outside the range of the program. Ofcourse, the range of addresses of the control table may be widened ornarrowed to determine a desired range of acidity for the program. Onereason for limiting the range of activity of the program would be in thecase of following a string line as a reference surface. If the followerloses the string line (such as by the grader operator driving offcourse, or a break in the string line), the follower will detect a verylow surface, namely the level of the ground beneath the string line. Ifno limit were placed on the range of activity of the follower, it woulddrive the blade very deep in its attempt to follow the ground surface.

The preferred "out of range" error signals are a blanking out of all thelights when the reference surface is too close, and lighting up both theupper and lower yellow lamps in FIG. 16 when the reference surface istoo far away.

Once the lights are blanked out in the situation under discussion, themain program branches to the beginning of the main loop, as depicted inFIG. 7A, and the loop is begun again to take another reading of thereference surface 170.

Referring back to the MAINDELAY routine of FIG. 14, assuming theinterrupt pin is not found to be active before the loop of this routineis completed, the accumulator (which is set to the value of TEMPTR) andthe TEMPRY variable (which is set to the value of DELAY) are repeatedlydecremented, just as in the AUTODELAY routine, to implement a delaywhich is adjusted for temperature.

Then the ECHODETECT routine is again called, with the result that anaddress pointer value is achieved, which relates to the time ofreception of the echo at the follower 10 during decrementation of theaccumulator ACC. If, for example, the reference ground surface 170 hasdropped as the grader 30 moves along, then the value of the addresspointer at the end of ECHODETECT will be less than 121, since theaccumulator will have had more time to decrement while the echo of thechirp was returning to the follower 10. The LIGHTS routine is thencalled, with the result that the blade 40 and frame 20 are lowered (inthis example), thus reestablishing the calibrated distance between thefollower 10 and the reference surface 170. At the end of the rangingprocedure in FIG. 7B, the program again branches to the beginning of themain loop and repeats this procedure, thus adjusting the blade 40 up anddown constantly as the grader moves along, to accommodate changes in thereference surface.

It will be appreciated that the foregoing procedure effectivelygenerates a first time interval (the DELAY time plus the accumulatordecrementation time) which comprises a calibration for the particularblade depth (and hence follower height) chosen by the operator beforeautoranging. Similarly, the MAINDELAY and ECHODETECT routines in theaggregate generate a second time interval directly corresponding to thelevel of the reference ground surface at a place different from thecalibration point, as the grader moves along the reference surface. TheLIGHTS routine then in effect compares the lengths of these first andsecond time intervals, by way of comparing the pointer address valuesgenerated during implementation of the ECHODETECT routine, and theresult of this indirect comparison is to automatically generate theraise and lower signals for the blade and frame by access to the controltable.

In an alternative embodiment of the program of the invention, shown inthe flow chart of FIG. 21, a calibrated value of DELAY is returned witha single pass through a routine which may be called the INSTARANGEroutine. The INSTARANGE routine completely replaces the AUTORANGE Aroutine in the program of the invention, and is called at the point inthe main program in FIG. 7A that the AUTORANGE routine would otherwisebe called.

Briefly, and as explained in detail below, in the INSTARANGE routine, afirst time interval count is generated by a single counter such that itdirectly measures the time taken for the chirp to echo back to thefollower at time of autoranging. This first time interval is then usedto calculate the calibrated value of DELAY, by subtracting a value fromthe first time interval corresponding to the amount of time taken by theaccumulator in the ECHODETECT routine to decrement from its maximumvalue (which may be 255, or 511, or some other value) to 121. Since thedecrementation of ACC in the ECHODETECT routine of FIG. 12 proceeds inthe preferred embodiment at a rate three times as fast as thedecrementation of TEMPRY in the MAINDELAY routine of FIG. 14, the valueof (255-121)/3=44.67 is subtracted from DELAY and the autorangingprocedure would be a single-pass routine. However, the values of DELAYmay only be integral in the present embodiment, and thus the value of 45should be subtracted from DELAY, and the overshoot of 1/3 can beaccommodated in the FINEDELAY routine, whose flow chart is depicted inFIG. 19 and which is discussed in detail below relative to the paver boxprogram of FIG. 17.

At the beginning of the INSTARANGE routine, the autorange bit is set inthe status word, as indicated by box 2 of FIG. 21. Then in box 3,FINEDELAY is initialized to its maximum (which may again be chosen to be21), and in box 4, the variable TEMPRY is initialized to the maximumvalue of DELAY. (As discussed in detail below, although single variablesare discussed for TEMPRY and DELAY, using the teaching below a two-bytevariation may be implemented, effectively extending the range of thesystem for a given microprocessor.)

In boxes 5-7, the TEMPERATURE COMPENSATION, CHIRP, and FINEDELAYroutines are called, thus returning a value for TEMPTR and implementingthe delay (after emission of the chirp) called for by the FINEDELAYvariable. Then, the interrupt is enabled, and ACC is set to TEMPTR, inboxes 8 and 9. Next, the loop of boxes 10 through 16 is implemented,serving to decrement the accumulator ACC (thus compensating fortemperature) while also decrementing TEMPRY. As indicated in box 15, ifthe interrupt from the echoed pulse occurs any time during this loop,then the loop is immediately exited, with the interrupt being disabledat box 16.

At this point, as shown in box 17, DELAY is set to the maximum valuethereof minus the value of TEMPRY, minus 45. This effectively invertsthe value of DELAY from that of TEMPRY, with the adjustment of 45mentioned above. The purpose of the "inversion" is to account for thefact that the value of TEMPRY is decremented from a maximum, rather thanincremented from a minimum, and is explained as follows If the value ofTEMPRY was decremented by an amount X, this value (in combination withthe time consumed by the FINEDELAY routine) represents the total timefor the reflected chirp to return to the follower--and, of course, thusrepresents the distance from the follower to the reference surface forcalibration purposes. Since the MAINDELAY routine decrements TEMPRY fromthe calibrated value of DELAY to zero, it is desired to set DELAY suchthat the time consumed by the MAINDELAY routine of FIG. 14 representsthe actual distance from the follower to the reference surface, i.e. X.Thus, the value of DELAY is set to the value of X by subtracting thefinal value of TEMPRY (upon exiting the INSTARANGE loop) from theinitial value thereof, namely the maximum value of DELAY. Then, 45 issubtracted from this amount to ensure that the value returned for ACCduring the ECHODETECT routine of FIG. 12 is 121, i.e. points to thedeadband, as discussed above. Finally, FINEDELAY is incremented by 1, tocompensate for the single-address overshoot caused by subtracting 45(rather than 44.67) from the value of DELAY. Thus, in one pass throughthe INSTARANGE routine of FIG. 21, a calibrated value of DELAY isreturned.

It will be appreciated that, if a deadband address other than 121 isdesired, a value other than 45 will be subtracted from the value ofDELAY. For instance, if 135 were the address of the center of thedeadband, then DELAY would be adjusted in box 17 of FIG. 21 bysubtracting (255-135)/3=40, rather than 45; and in this case, noadjustment to the value of FINEDELAY would be necessary, since 120 isevenly divisible by 3. Additionally, if an incrementing counter wereused for TEMPRY instead of a decrementing counter, then the inversionstep of box 17 in FIG. 21 (i.e., subtracting TEMPRY from the maximumvalue of DELAY) could be eliminated.

As a practical matter, the step of box 17 in FIG. 21 of subtracting bothTEMPRY and 45 from the maximum value of DELAY may be carried out in twosteps, such as by first adding the value of TEMPRY to 45 and thensubtracting the sum from the maximum value of DELAY.

Once the value of DELAY is adjusted in the INSTARANGE routine asdescribed above, the remaining steps and routines in the main program ofFIGS. 7A-7D may then be utilized.

In another alternative embodiment, the program of FIGS. 7A-7D isreplaced by Program B of 22A-22B, which calls the INSTARANGE B andTIMING routines of FIGS. 23 and 24, respectively, as discussed belowProgram B (the details of which are given below) generates a first timeinterval for calibrating purposes, and then for grading generates asecond time interval corresponding exactly to the amount of time takenfor the echoed chirp to reflect back to the follower, and this secondtime interval is compared directly to the first time interval togenerate the blade and frame adjustment values.

As shown in FIG. 22A, the initial steps of testing for staged orproportional timing control boxes are the same as in the main program ofFIG. 7A. Although the paver box test has not been shown in FIG. 22A,this could also be implemented, as could an alternative paver boxprogram incorporating the features of the alternative embodiment ofFIGS. 22-24.

Then, the INSTARANGE B subroutine is called This routine, which appearsin FIG. 23, first initializes a variable TIME 1 to 0, and then calls theTEMPERATURE COMPENSATION routine and the CHIRP routine of FIGS. 9 and10, respectively. The interrupt is then enabled, and the loop shown inFIG. 23 increments TIME1 while adjusting the amount of time consumed bythe loop based upon the value of TEMPTR returned by the TEMPERATURECOMPENSATION routine When an interrupt occurs, the loop is exited, theinterrupt is disabled, and a return to the main program is implemented.When the INSTARANGE B routine is exited, therefore, the value of TIME1represents the total travel time for the chirp to travel from thefollower to the reference surface and back, as adjusted for temperature.

In the lower half of FIG. 22A, steps are implemented which are similarto those implemented in the lower half of FIG. 7A. When an increaseTIME1 or decrease TIME1 request is made by the operator (or by someother means, such as a peripheral), 1 is added or subtracted,respectively, to the variable TIME1. It will be understood that testsfor whether TIME1 has exceeded its limits due to such increase ordecrease request may also be utilized, as in the flow charts of FIGS. 7Cand 7D.

At the end of the flow chart of FIG. 22A, the program goes to theranging procedure shown in the flow chart of FIG. 22B. This is analogousto the ranging procedure of the main program shown at FIG. 7B. First,the TEMPERATURE COMPENSATION and CHIRP routines are called, as in themain program. Then, the TIMING routine of FIG. 24 is called. Thisroutine is quite similar to the INSTARANGE B routine, except that avalue for the variable TIME2 is returned, representing the actualdistance from the follower to the reference surface as the gradertravels along. At the end of the TIMING routine of FIG. 24, the addresspointer is set equal to (TIME1 minus TIME2) plus 121. If TIME1 is equalto TIME2, then the resulting value for the address pointer is 121, whichpoints to the center of the green band. If TIME1 and TIME2 aredifferent, this step in FIG. 24 generates a value for the addresspointer which is different from 121 by an amount representing thedifference in the calibrated reference surface level and the actualreference surface level measured as the grader moves along. Finally, areturn is implemented in FIG. 24.

Returning then to FIG. 22B, the LIGHTS routine of FIG. 13 is called asusual, and the address pointer is utilized to address the appropriatecontrol word in the control table, adjustments are made to thehydraulics as necessary, and a return is implemented to the rangingprocedure of FIG. 22B. Finally, in the flow chart of FIG. 22B, theoutput to the control box is ended after 20 milliseconds and a DELAY isimplemented to obtain the desired cycle time, as in the flow chart inFIG. 7B.

Thus, with the alternative embodiment of FIGS. 22A-22B and 23-24, thepresent invention accomplishes the advantages discussed above.

Again, the effect is to compare the value of the second time intervalwith that of the first time interval, in a direct manner (instead of theindirect manner of the embodiments utilizing the DELAY variable), andthen to adjust the height of the blade and frame on the basis of thatcomparison. Other variations on the above embodiments may alsoaccomplish these tasks.

The entire main loop (of any of the embodiments) is preferablyimplemented at a rate of ten times per second, thus obtaining a veryfast update on changes in the level of the reference surface 170. Forthis purpose, at the end of the main loop in FIG. 7B, the step ofdelaying to obtain the desired cycle time is implemented. The step justpreceding the cycle time delay involves ceasing the control word outputto the control box after a given period of time, such as 20milliseconds. The purpose of this step is to emulate certain standarddetectors which are configured to respond to sweeping laser signals ofapproximately 20 milliseconds' duration. Other detectors may be emulatedby utilizing different periods by the control word and different cycletimes for the main loop.

Referring to FIGS. 7C and 7D and FIGS. 17C and 17D, if, as the operatorgrades the surface 160, he wishes to alter the offset from the surface170, an "increase delay" or "decrease delay" request may be made. Thus,the control box is provided with a switch or a dial (not separatelyshown) and a display. If the operator began with an offset of, forexample, 12 inches, he may dial in a request to decrease the offset by 2inches to 10 inches. This request will be sent to the microprocessor viapins G and H of FIG. 6, which are connected as inputs at pins MP1 andMP39. If the operator desires that the blade 40 be raised, thiscorresponds to a decreased offset, and requires that the frame 20 beraised relative to the surface 170. Since the follower 10 would then befarther away from the surface 170, the total amount of time required forthe chirp to echo back to the follower 10 is increased, and thus adecreased offset request corresponds to "increase delay" request.Similarly, if the operator wishes to increase the offset, i.e. lower thesurface 160 relative to the surface 170, then the net result is that thefollower 10 must be closer to the surface 170, and a "decrease delay"request must be implemented. In a preferred embodiment, the INCREASEDELAY or DECREASE DELAY request is repeatedly implemented so long as theswitch is held up or down, respectively.

If an increase delay request is made, the INCREASE DELAY procedure ofFIG. 7C is begun. The procedure first tests for whether an upper delaylimit flag is set, which would indicated that the delay is already atits maximum. This flag is preferably initialized at some point beforethe INCREASE DELAY procedure is first requested (but not separatelyshown in the flow chart). If the upper limit flag is already set, thedelay is already at its maximum, and the blade cannot be raised anyhigher. Therefore, the program then branches to the beginning of theranging procedure of FIG. 7B, in effect overriding the operator'srequest to raise the blade 40.

If the upper delay limit flag is not set, then the INCREASE DELAYprocedure clears a lower delay limit flag (which may have been setduring a previous DECREASE DELAY request). Then, the value of thevariable DELAY is incremented, and is tested to see whether it exceedsthe upper delay limit. If it does, the variable DELAY is thendecremented, the upper delay limit flag is set, and the program branchesto the beginning of the ranging procedure, once again overriding theoperator's request to raise the blade 40. If the upper delay limit isnot reached, the requested increment in the DELAY variable isaccomplished, and the microprocessor 100 sends output signals at pinsMP31 and MP 32 to the quadrature lines connected through pins I and J tothe control box, thereby altering the counter display on the control boxto indicate to the operator of the grader that the increase delayrequest is being implemented.

The net result of the INCREASE DELAY procedure is to increment the DELAYby a single minimum step. Then, the ranging procedure is executed, andthe blade is thereby raised by this single minimum increment.

Each increment or decrement is reflected on the numeric display of thecontrol box 80 (being supplied thereto via pins I and J), so that theoperator may keep follow of the amount by which the blade depth ischanged.

In the preferred embodiment, each increment in the variable DELAYcorresponds to approximately the time the chirp takes to travel 1/200 ofa foot. Since the chirp must make a round trip from the follower to thesurface 170 and back, this effectively corresponds to a heightdifference for the blade 40 of 1/100 of a foot. Thus, for a given singleincrementation of DELAY, the blade will rise 1/100 of a foot, and willlower by the same amount for a single decrementation of DELAY. Otherdegrees of fine adjustments of the blade 40 may be implemented, and,indeed, are implemented when the AUTORANGE and INSTARANGE routines arecalled.

The DECREASE DELAY procedure is simply the opposite of the INCREASEDELAY procedure and, as shown in the flow chart of FIG. 7D, willdecrement the value of DELAY once for each loop of the main loop. Sincethe main loop is executed 10 times per second and an increase ordecrease of 1/100 of a foot may be accomplished for each loop, it willbe seen that, in this embodiment, the program accommodates gradingalterations requested by the operator at a rate of approximately 10/100(or 1/10) of a foot per second.

The increase and decrease delay requests are accomplished somewhatdifferently for the staged control box than for the PT control box. Thisis because the staged box utilizes a refinement of hydraulic valveadjustment known as dynamic braking. This standard procedure of stagedcontrol boxes is thus preferably compensated when the staged control boxis utilized, by simply adding a delay after the implementation of eachof the INCREASE DELAY and DECREASE DELAY procedures for the staged box,in order to prevent erroneous signals from the control box to thefollower, which might otherwise occur at the time of releasing theswitch for making the increase delay or decrease delay request. (Thecompensation is not shown separately in the flow charts of FIG. 7C and7D.)

For some ranges of sensitivity for the follower 10, it may be necessaryto utilize two variables, taken in the aggregate as a single number, toaccommodate the desired range of operation of the device. Thus, DELAYmay actually refer to two 8-bit registers, which in the aggregaterepresent the total amount of DELAY, with the result being that agreater delay time and hence a smaller offset may be accommodated. Thus,one such variable might be DELAY1, and the other DELAY2. When the valueof DELAY1 reaches its maximum (which is 255 for an 8-bit variable),DELAY2 is incremented by 1 (such as from 00000001 to 00000010), andDELAY1 is reset to its minimum value for incrementation again. Thiseffectively creates a two-byte value--of base 256, since eachincrementation of DELAY2 is the equivalent of 256 incrementations ofDELAY1--for DELAY out of the two variables DELAY1 and DELAY2 It is astraightforward matter, given the above method of utilizing twovariables as one, to alter the loops of AUTODELAY and MAINDELAY toaccommodate a dual-register variable as opposed to a single-variableregister, by ensuring that the "upper" register (corresponding toDELAY2) is incremented or decremented only when the "lower" register(corresponding to DELAY1) has reached its upper or lower limit,respectively. Indeed, in the preferred embodiment, this is done, inorder to allow for a greater follower sensitivity range than would bepossible with a single variable DELAY.

If the control box which is coupled to the follower 10 is a paver box,then at the top of the flow chart of FIG. 7A, the main program willbranch to the paver box program of FIG. 17A. Such an implementation isshown in FIG. 5, wherein the follower 10 and paver control box 85 aremounted on the paver 180. The paver includes a paver blade (usuallyreferred to as a "screed") 280, which pushes before it, as the operatorof the paver drives along, a quantity of paving material 290, which maybe sand, asphalt or the like. The paving material 290 is leveled by theblade 280 into the desired surface configuration. The basic operation ofthe paver 180 is analogous to that of the grader 30, in that the blade280 is raised and lowered to compensate for the level of the referencesurface 170. The arrangement of the blade 280 of the paver 180 is, ofcourse, somewhat different than that of the blade 40 of the grader 30.Thus, the blade is connected at the forward end of the paver 180 to therams 50 and 60 via draw bars 285, one of which appears in FIG. 5 and theother of which would be located symmetrically opposite the draw bar 285on the other side of the paver As the forward ends of the draw bars 285are raised, the change in the height of the leading edge (which would bebeneath the paver 180) of the blade 280 causes the blade level to travelupwards, due in part to a change in the angle of attack of the blade 280relative to the paving material 290. Conversely, as the draw bars arelowered, the leading edge of the blade 280 lowers, and digs into thepaving material 290 somewhat, resulting in a lower pavement surfaceThus, although the physical configurations of the grader blade 40 andthe paver blade 280 are not identical, the functions of these blades areanalogous.

In operation, it may be desired that a surface 300 be provided withasphalt pavement so that its height matches that of the referencesurface 170, in which case the operator of the paver 180 will firstadjust the height of the blade 280 such that, as the paving material 290is pushed along, the resulting paved height of the surface 300 is at thesame level as the reference surface 170. Once the blade 280 is adjustedto the appropriate height, the operator is ready to "autorange" theprogram. This may be done at power up, as with the staged box andproportional timing box; but also, an additional button or switch may beprovided on the paver control box 85 to autorange at any time, inalternative embodiments Thus, in the paver box program depicted in partin the flow chart of FIG. 17A, a test is implemented for whether or notan autorange request has been made by the operator. If so, the AUTORANGEB program (see FIG. 18) relating to the paver box program is called. Inthe preferred embodiment, the same pins G and H which are utilized forincrease and decrease delay requests are also used to call the AUTORANGEB routine, since a two-bit signal can accommodate three differentrequests.

There are two major differences between the paver box program of FIG. 17and the staged box and PT box program of FIG. 7. The first is that inthe paver box program, allowance is made for finer adjustments in theheight of the blade 280 than is the case for the staged box or PT boximplementations. This is accomplished in a routine called FINEDELAY,shown in FIG. 19 and discussed below. The other difference lies in theadjustments made to the blade 280 via the rams 50 and 60. In short, thecoarse and fine adjustments represent an averaged adjustment over10-loop intervals for the paver program, whereas for the staged and PTcontrol boxes, each adjustment represents the result of a single passthrough the main loop.

Referring now to FIGS. 17A-17D, the paver box program is in otherrespects essentially identical to the main program of FIGS. 7A-7D.

At the beginning of the paver box program in FIG. 17A, the AUTORANGE Broutine is called, as depicted in the flow chart of FIG. 18. At thebeginning of this AUTORANGE B routine, the program sets a variable--tobe referred to as FINEDELAY--to some predetermined value, which in thepreferred embodiment is the value 21 In the loop of the AUTORANGE Broutine, the variable DELAY is set (in what might be referred to as a"coarse tuning" manner) so as to effectively calibrate the program forthe height of the follower 10 above the reference surface 170. However,this routine also sets the value of FINEDELAY for fine tuning such thatthe combined delay implemented by the FINEDELAY and MAINDELAY routinesensures that, when the ECHODETECT routine is called, the value of theaddress pointer will be within the deadband range.

In order to accomplish this, during the first loop shown in theAUTORANGE B routine, the routine FINEDELAY is called after the firstcalling of the CHIRP routine The FINEDELAY routine, which is depicted inthe flow chart of FIG. 19, simply implements a delay relating to theamount of time necessary to decrement FINEDELAY to zero, utilizing thevariable TEMPRY. Of course, this amount of time depends upon the valueof FINEDELAY, which, as noted above, was initialized to 21. For reasonsto be described below, the rate of decrementation in the FINEDELAYroutine is faster than in the MAINDELAY routine, by a factor of three inthe preferred embodiment.

Thus, in the upper loop of the AUTORANGE B routine of FIG. 18, FINEDELAYis a constant, and a calibrated value of DELAY is returned, just as inthe AUTORANGE A routine (A calibrated value for delay may be defined asthe initial value of DELAY which, when continuously decremented to zerofollowed by continuous incrementation of the accumulator during theinterval preceding the echo return interrupt, results in an accumulatorvalue at the time of echo return interrupt which is in the deadband.)However, a second loop is also implemented in AUTORANGE B. First,however, the value of DELAY is offset by -4; as will be seen below, thisis an adjustment to accommodate the fact that an average value ofadjustments is being utilized instead of instantaneous values.

It will be noted that, at the end of the first loop in AUTORANGE B, thetest is not whether the address pointer points to an address within thedeadband, but whether the address pointer points to an address at orabove the deadband. The reason for this, and the reason for utilizingthe FINEDELAY variable and routine, is that in paving operations a muchtighter deadband is typically utilized for tighter height control of thepaving operation. Indeed, for many applications, a deadband of a singleaddress of the control table is used (such that only address 121includes a "green" control word). At the normal rate of decrementing theDELAY variable, it is easy to overshoot this address. For instance, inthe preferred embodiment utilizing a staged or PT control box, theaccumulator runs at a decrementation rate during the ECHODETECT routinewhich is three times as fast as the rate of decrementation during theMAINDELAY routine. The result of this is that if DELAY is incremented by1, the value for the address pointer after the ECHODETECT routine isimplemented during the ranging procedure will be 3 higher than for theprevious value of DELAY. For instance, if a given value of DELAY led toa value of the address pointer of 119, and the AUTORANGE routine thenincrements DELAY by 1 (since a "green" control word has not been foundby the address pointer), the next value obtained for the address pointerwill be 122, and the program will therefore have skipped thesingle-address deadband at address 121. Thus, in the paver box program,if this happens, the variable FINEDELAY is decremented once and, if ithas not hit zero, the routines CHIRP, FINEDELAY, AUTODELAY, ECHODETECT,and LIGHTS are called, and the pointer address is then tested to seewhether it points to the "green" control word, i.e., lies within thedeadband. If it does not, the lower loop of FIG. 18 is repeatedlyimplemented, with repeatedly decremented values of FINEDELAY, until thecorrect value of FINEDELAY is determined such that the address pointerends up within the deadband. It will be appreciated that this point wasreached by incrementing the variable DELAY slightly too much, such thatthe accumulator during the ECHODETECT routine decremented past thedeadband address of 121. Thus, by decrementing FINEDELAY, the program ineffect backs up the DELAY to allow the deadband to be reached during theECHODETECT routine.

Once the calibrated values of DELAY and FINEDELAY are determined, theranging procedure for the paver is carried out, as indicated in the flowchart of FIG. 17B. Again, the FINEDELAY routine is called, and then theMAINDELAY and ECHODETECT routines are called.

At this point, in the preferred embodiment the pointer address valuedetermined during the ECHODETECT routine is averaged (by standard movingaverage procedure) with the previous nine pointer address values. Thus,nine temporary pointer address registers are provided, whereby the mostrecent nine values of the pointer address are stored Then, thePAVELIGHTS routine depicted in the flow chart of FIG. 20 is called.Other than the averaging procedure, this routine is identical to theLIGHTS routine The averaging procedure utilized by the PAVELIGHTSroutine for the paver implementation is an option which results insmoother transitions from one grading level of the blade 280 shown inFIG. 5 to another As the paver 180 moves along, the height of the blade280 determines the amount of paving material 290 is distributed over thesurface 300, and hence determines the height of the resulting pavement.Thus, the paving operation is analogous to the grading operation. Itwill be appreciated that the paver 180 will function acceptably withoututilizing an averaging procedure as in FIG. 20, and indeed for someapplications it will be preferred to omit the averaging, instead usingthe more direct-response method of the LIGHTS routine.

When the PAVELIGHTS routine is executed during the first nine passesthrough the AUTORANGE B routine upper loop (as DELAY is beingincremented for calibration purposes), there will, of course, not be asmany as nine preceding values for the value of the pointer addressInstead, there will typically be random values appearing in the ninetemporary pointer address registers, and it is therefore preferable toinitialize these registers to a maximum (or some other known value), inorder to avoid prematurely exiting the upper loop of FIG. 18 due to anerroneous value of the moving average of the address pointer based uponsuch random values.

The reason for the -4 offset of the pointer address during the AUTORANGEB routine is as follows. Since (as mentioned above ) a singleincrementation of the variable DELAY will result in a difference in theaddress pointer after the ECHODETECT routine of 3, as AUTORANGE B isexecuted, each value of the address pointer which is produced will bethree less than the previous value of the address pointer. Since thePAVELIGHTS routine tests for whether the average value (rather than theinstantaneous value) of the pointer address lies within the deadband,there will be several values of the pointer address below the deadbandand several values above it. Thus, at least these final four values forthe address pointer will lie above the deadband, and for that reason thevalue of DELAY is adjusted downward by 4 to offset this effectiveovershoot due to averaging.

As shown in the flow chart of FIG. 17A, the paver box program calls thepaver increase and decrease delay procedures at the request of theoperator. These procedures, depicted in the flow charts of FIGS. 17C and17D, respectively, are substantively identical to the increase anddecrease delay procedures shown in the flow charts of FIGS. 7B and 7D.

Although the paver box 85 as depicted in FIG. 5 has a display 95,typical paver boxes do not include such displays. For such paver boxes,it may be difficult for the operator to determine by how much he hasaltered the height of the blade 280 by making INCREASE or DECREASE DELAYrequests (which are made by means of a switch 105). For such a system itis desirable that the switch 105 is a toggle configured such that whenit is depressed, a single INCREASE or DECREASE DELAY request isimplemented, with the direction that it is depressed determining whetherthe request is an INCREASE DELAY request or a DECREASE DELAY request.Thus, for example, if the operator wishes to raise the blade 280 by7/100 of a foot, he would depress the toggle in the appropriatedirection seven times.

As shown in the flow chart of FIG. 17A, after the paver box programtests for whether an increase delay request has been made, it then testsfor whether an autorange request has been made, and finally tests forwhether a decrease delay request has been made. In an alternativeembodiment, the test for whether an autorange request has been made maybe included as one of the steps of the decrease delay procedure.

Using the foregoing apparatus and method, it is a simple matter for anoperator of an earth grader or paver to align the blade of his machineat a particular desired height, autorange the follower by powering up,and then drive the grader away, assured that the follower will maintainthe blade at the chosen depth throughout the grading process. Thefollower will, furthermore, provide error signals to the operator towarn him that the sensitivity range of the instrument is being exceeded(as specified above), and will automatically adjust for temperature forthe entire time the grading is being carried out. By implementation ofthe variations discussed above, by utilization of different constants,routine implementation times and control table values, and by makingother alterations to the above disclosure based upon the teachingsherein, it will be appreciated that modifications and variations may bemade on the present invention without departing from the spirit andscope of the claims appended hereto.

We claim:
 1. In a machine such as a paver or grader carrying avertically adjustable blade at a chosen depth relative to a referencesurface having a variable height, an apparatus for automaticallyadjusting the blade for maintaining the blade at the chosen depth,including:a follower connected to the blade at a position above thereference surface; means coupled to said follower for generatingacoustic pulses toward the reference surface for reflection thereby;processor coupled to said generating means and including means forcontrolling said generation of said acoustic pulses; a memory coupled tosaid processor and storing control words relating to instructions forvertically adjusting the blade; means for detecting said acoustic pulsesat said follower after reflection by the reference surface; a countermeans coupled to said processor for generating a count related to alength of time taken by said acoustic pulses to be reflected back tosaid detecting means; means for using said count to retrieve a controlword stored in said memory; means for calibrating said adjustingapparatus while said follower is at a selected height above saidreference surface, such that, when the blade is at the chosen depth,said count related to a predetermined control word in said control tablerelating to a zero adjustment instruction for the blade; means coupledto said processor for causing said generating means to repeatedlygenerate said acoustic pulses after said calibration for repeatedlygenerating further counts relating to lengths of time taken by saidacoustic pulses to be reflected back to the follower, such that saidfurther counts relate to control words stored at locations of saidmemory corresponding to variations in the height of the referencesurface; and further including means carried by the grader forvertically adjusting the blade; and means for providing said controlword as instructions to said adjusting means for automatically followingsaid variations in the height of the reference surface.
 2. The apparatusof claim 1, wherein said means for calibrating said adjusting apparatuscomprises means for initializing a delay time to a minimum value,wherein said delay time relates to an amount of time by which thegeneration of said count is delayed, and for repeatedly incrementingsaid delay time value, causing at least one said acoustic pulse to begenerated, starting said counter at a first time which is said delaytime after said acoustic pulse is generated, and stopping said counterwhen said at least one acoustic pulse is detected by said detectingmeans for generating a test count, until the test count points to anaddress in said control table relating to a zero adjustment instructionfor the adjusting means.
 3. The apparatus of claim 1, further includingmeans for adjusting any of said counts to compensate for changes intemperature occurring in the vicinity of said follower after saidcalibration of said adjusting apparatus.
 4. The apparatus of claim 3,wherein said adjusting means includes a one-shot connected to an inputof said processor and a thermistor connected to an input of saidone-shot, for producing temperature compensation signals correspondingto said temperature changes.
 5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein saidgenerating means comprises an acoustic transducer driven at apredetermined frequency by said processor, and said detecting meanscomprises said transducer in combination with an analog receivingsection, wherein said analog receiving section is connected to saidtransducer and has an input connected to an output of said transducer,said transducer output being activated by reception at said transducerof said reflected acoustic pulses at times when said transducer is notbeing driven by said processor, said analog receiving section includingmeans for producing an output signal to the processor indicating when atleast one said reflected pulse is received at said transducer.
 6. Theapparatus of claim 1, wherein:said control table includes a firstportion relating to upward adjustments of said blade, a second portionrelating to zero adjustment of said blade, a third portion relating todownward adjustments of said blade, a fourth portion relating to zeroadjustment of said blade, and a fifth portion relating to zeroadjustment of said blade, such that said count addresses said firstportion when said reference surface is closer than said selected heightto said follower but not closer than a predetermined lower limit,addresses said second portion when said reference surface issubstantially at said selected height from said follower, addresses saidthird portion when said reference surface is farther than said selectedheight from said follower but not farther than a predetermined upperlimit, addresses said fourth portion when said reference surface iscloser than said lower limit to said follower, and addresses said fifthportion when said reference surface is farther than said upper limitfrom said follower.
 7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein said followerincludes a display connected to said processor, such that said displayshows first, second, and third adjustment signals relating to saidaddressing by said count of said first, second and third portions,respectively, of said control table, and displays first and second errorsignals when said count addresses said fourth and fifth portions,respectively, of said control table.
 8. The apparatus of claim 7,further including a control box carried by the grader, said control boxhaving a display for showing signals corresponding to said first, secondand third adjustment signals and to said first and second error signals.9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein said second portion of said controltable represents a number of addresses of said control table relating toan error margin, and wherein the apparatus further includes means forvarying said number of addresses, such that the operator may select oneof a plurality of predetermined error margins, for maintaining the bladeat the chosen depth within said selected error margin.
 10. The apparatusof claim 8, further including means coupled to said processor foraltering said selected height, for selecting a new depth for the bladeas said chosen depth.
 11. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein saidprocessor includes means for averaging a predetermined number of saidcounts for addressing said control table, such that said blade isprovided with adjustment instructions which change relatively slowlyover time with respect to changes in a level of said reference surface.12. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein said fourth portion and said firsterror signal relate to a position of said blade which is closer to saidreference surface than a predetermined minimum, and wherein said fifthportion and said second error signal relate to a position of said bladewhich is farther from said reference surface than a predeterminedmaximum.
 13. In a grader or paver carrying an adjustable surfacing toolat a first distance relative to a reference surface having a variablesurface, an apparatus for automatically adjusting the surfacing tool formaintaining the surfacing tool at the first distance, including:afollower connected to the surfacing tool at a position near thereference surface; means coupled to said follower for generatingacoustic pulses toward the reference surface for reflection thereby; aprocessor coupled to said generating means for controlling saidgeneration of said acoustic pulses; a memory coupled to said processorand storing control words relating to instructions for adjusting thesurfacing tools; means for detecting said acoustic pulses at saidfollower after reflection by the reference surface; counter meanscoupled to said processor for generating a count related to a length oftime taken by said acoustic pulses to be reflected back to saiddetecting means; means for using said count as an address pointer to acontrol word stored in said memory, such that said count comprises apointer for addressing said control words; means for calibrating saidadjusting apparatus while said follower is at a second distance fromsaid reference surface, such that, when the surfacing tool is at thesecond distance, said address pointer addresses a predetermined controlword in said memory relating to a zero adjustment instruction for thesurfacing tool; means coupled to said processor for causing saidgenerating means to repeatedly generate said acoustic pulses after saidcalibration for repeatedly generating further counts relating to lengthsof time taken by said acoustic pulses to be reflected back to thefollower, such that said further counts address control words stored atlocations of said memory corresponding to variations in the referencesurface; and further including means carried by the machine foradjusting the surfacing tool; and means for providing said control wordsas instructions to said adjusting means for automatically following saidvariations in the reference surface.
 14. In a grader or paver anadjustable surfacing tool at a first distance relative to a referencesurface having a variable surface, an apparatus for automaticallyadjusting the surfacing tool for maintaining the surfacing tool at thefirst distance, including:a follower connected to the surfacing tool ata position near the reference surface; means coupled to said followerfor generating acoustic pulses toward the reference surface forreflection thereby; controlling means coupled to said generating meansfor controlling said generation of said acoustic pulses; reference meanscoupled to said controlling means for providing control signals relatingto adjustments to the surfacing tool; means for detecting said acousticpulses at said follower after reflection by the reference surface;timing means coupled to said controlling means for generating a timingsignal related to a length of time taken by said acoustic pulses to bereflected back to said detecting means; means for providing said timingsignal to said reference means for causing said reference means toprovide control signals relating to distances of said follower from saidreference surface; means for calibrating said adjusting apparatus whilesaid follower is at a second distance from said reference surface, suchthat, when the surfacing tool is at the first distance, said referencemeans provides a control signal relating to a zero adjustment of thesurfacing tool; means coupled to said controlling means for causing saidgenerating means to repeatedly generate said acoustic pulses after saidcalibration for repeatedly generating further timing signals relating tolengths of time taken by said acoustic pulses to be reflected back tothe follower, such that said further timing signals are provided by saidproviding means to said reference means for causing said reference meansto provide control signals relating to distances of said follower fromsaid reference surface as determined by said timing signals; and furtherincluding means carried by the machine for adjusting the surfacing tool;means for providing said control signals as instructions to saidadjusting means for automatically following said variations in thereference surface; and means for compensating said control signals forchanges in ambient temperature occurring in the vicinity of saidfollower after said calibration.